Author to Discuss Her Memoir with Xavier University First-Year Students

| August 17, 2011

Squid can fly.

That is only one of the things Tori Murden McClure learned on her adventure as the first woman to row a boat solo across an ocean. She detailed her journey in her award-winning A Pearl in the Storm, http://www.apearlinthestorm.com/ the summer reading experience selection for incoming first year students at Xavier. McClure will join the students to discuss the 2009 book on Monday, August 22 from 9:30-10:30 a.m. in the Cintas Center arena. She will speak to the students for 40 minutes and take 20 minutes of questions. She will observe some of the small group discussions and lunch with the Xavier committee which selected her book.

Media are welcome to cover the talk and discussions. McClure will be available for interviews from about 10:30-10:45. Please call 513-498-1104 so we know you are coming.

McClure’s day job is president of Spalding University, a Catholic university in Louisville with about 1,700 students. Once a decade, she breaks from her routine life to do something really outrageous.

“My success has come as a scholar and an athlete,” said McClure. “Aristotle taught us to live by the "golden mean." Most of the time, I lead the life of a mild-mannered university administrator, nothing in excess. About once a decade, I abandon Aristotle for the über path of Nietzsche. I abandon the stability of a balanced life and I go after one thing with all my being. At the end of the 1980s, I skied to the South Pole. At the end of the 1990s, I rowed across an ocean. This decade I decided to write a book, which has been far more demanding than skiing or rowing. As with other über endeavors, if I do it well, I will be dragged beyond my comfort zone.”

Xavier’s incoming first-year class stands at 1,137 students. The weekend before classes, they experience Manresa, an orientation which refers to the town in Spain where Saint Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, took time to reflect on his life - past, present, and future. His journey parallels the reflection students will experience as they begin their collegiate careers. Manresa gives them the opportunity to look back on their past, enjoy their present and set goals for where they want to be.